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Honorary high school diploma special to Marine

JTN
1:06 p.m. CDT August 3, 2014

Vietnam War veteran Jerry Lovett holds the honorary high school diploma he received on June 12 from Humboldt High School. Lovett attended Humboldt High School until he left during the 10th grade and joined the Marines in November 1969.(Photo: Submitted photo)

Jerry Lovett's daughter gave him a cap that indicates he is a veteran of the Vietnam War.

Since he began wearing it, he often has been startled by the reaction of people who see him, many of whom are total strangers.

They shake his hand and thank him for his military service. They secretly pay for his meal at a restaurant. Or they simply smile and signal with a thumbs up.

It is a far cry from the reception he and other Vietnam veterans received when they returned home from a divisive war in the 1960s and early 1970s.

But nothing has pleased Lovett more than the surprise ceremony he experienced on June 12 when he received an honorary diploma from Humboldt High School.

"I was just overwhelmed," he said. "It was really nice of them."

But Lovett's comments during the presentation made it a special moment for all present.

Going to war

Lovett, who turns 63 on Aug. 18, attended Humboldt High School until he left during the 10th grade and joined the Marines in November 1969.

He had repeated third grade and was already 18, which is the legal age to make your own decisions about joining the military. His father had refused to sign for Lovett to join a year earlier.

Everyone knew in 1969 that a new recruit, especially an infantry rifleman, soon would be in the jungles of Vietnam fighting the Viet Cong. Lovett embraced that reality.

"I probably should have finished school, but I had always wanted to be a Marine," he said. "They were the best, and I really wanted to serve my country. So I joined the Marine Corps."

By June 1970, Lovett was seeing combat in Vietnam.

"I was what they call an 'infantry grunt,' with the 1st Marine Division," he said. "We would get on the choppers, and they would carry us out for patrols. You were so close to the Viet Cong sometimes, it made everybody draw up. And when you ran into them, you did what you had to do."

Friends died beside him, and he often helped pull wounded Marines to safety. He said he volunteered once to join a 10-man unit to search for a deadly sniper. His lieutenant, two men away from him, was wounded during the mission but survived.

Lovett, who had malaria at the time, was placed on the same chopper with his wounded lieutenant and taken to a hospital ship for treatment.

"I sure enjoyed that bed on the ship," he said. "I got to eat good food and take a shower every day."

After 21 days, he was back on patrols. Many of the letters he sent home are not readable because the ink smeared so badly from wet-weather damage while being transported in Vietnam.

"The only thing good about the monsoon rains over there was that it kept the mosquitoes off you," Lovett said.

Back home

He vividly remembers his final patrol and getting off the chopper when it landed at the base.

"There were a handful of us who had finished our one-year tour," he said. "We all just hugged each other because we were so happy to get out of there alive."

Lovett completed his three-year active duty in the Marines in California. While there, he took the General Education Development test for a high school equivalency diploma but did not pass one of the five sections. He never got around to taking the GED again.

After military service, he worked as a meat cutter for several groceries and then got a job at Gerdau Ameristeel in Jackson. He retired from there in October 2012 after 31 years.

Lovett had dismissed any thoughts of getting a high school diploma until he saw a pamphlet from the Veterans Administration. It told him about a law that allows the state to issue honorary high school diplomas to honorably discharged veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

He contacted Humboldt City Schools, met with Superintendent Versie Hamlett, provided his honorable-discharge papers and waited for his diploma to arrive by mail.

He thought little about it when he was asked to pick up the diploma at a meeting of the Humboldt City Schools Board of Education. After sitting in the meeting room a few minutes, he suddenly realized he would be called to the front to formally receive the diploma and accept a word of thanks and a handshake from Hamlett and Humboldt High School Principal James Walker.

Lovett was not prepared when he was asked to say a few words to the members of the board. So he spoke from his heart.

"I thanked the school and everybody there and all the veterans who fought for me and the men and women who are fighting for me now," he said. "And I told them I was blessed to come back from Vietnam alive. It's not right for me to complain. I don't think that the ones who died for me would want me to complain."

Hamlett said it was an honor to present the honorary diploma to Lovett.

"He served our country well," she said. "That's the least we can do for our veterans."

For more information on the honorary high school diplomas for honorably discharged war veterans, visit www.state.tn.us/veteran/state_benifits/vet_diplomas.html.

As for Lovett, his diploma is proudly displayed in a frame on a wall in his home.

"It's really nice," he said, "and I'm grateful."

Dan Morris can be reached at 668-1709 or by email at danmorris44@charter.net.